Trudeau's problems part of a broader malaise

The kids are not all right

The talk of politics in Canada is that Prime Minister Trudeau and his federal Liberal party are running on fumes. The stunning loss of last Monday’s by-election in Toronto—St Paul’s is the latest, most vivid evidence that Canadians are ready for a change in government.

Seen close up, it’s certainly possible this is just part of the cyclical nature of politics. Every incumbent government, sooner or later, wears out its welcome and voters look to the opposition to do better. What goes up must come down, etc. etc.

And yet that doesn’t seem to adequately capture the moment. Polls and elections around the world— in a surprising number of jurisdictions—suggest voters are turning against incumbents in general. People around the world appear to be looking for a change. 

Beyond that, there is a remarkable pattern behind that larger finding: the youth in particular are turning away from incumbent governments. This is true across Canada; it is true beyond Canada. It is true of right-of-centre governments, but most strikingly, it is also true of left-of-centre governments. When you look at polling in democracies around the world, the 18-34 age cohort are abandoning the incumbent in favour of opposition—quite often choosing a populist-style politician offering clear and simple answers to complex problems.

Simply put, whether it’s a left- or right-of-centre party falling out of favour, it’s the youth and the marginalized who are leading the charge for the exits and kicking the tires on a leading alternative party.

I’d like to advance a simple premise to account for this pattern: citizens of democracies around the world, and particularly voters at the margins, have concluded that the social contract is no longer functioning. Whether one is discussing affordability, housing, upward mobility, education costs, action on climate change, the effects of globalization, the poison-drugs crisis, access to health care, the power of multinational corporations, immigration, the influence of foreign governments, there is a sense that mainstream incumbent governments do not have voters’ interests at heart.

If mainstream parties hope to regain reliable support and rebuild relationships with younger voters, they’re going to have to return to the core of what any government must do for its citizens: keep them feeling safe and secure in the expectation that the government has their best interests at heart. 

Let’s begin with some polling results. 

Some patterns are not a surprise. It’s a truism in politics that younger voters tend to lean left, so it should shock no one that 18-34 year-olds in Alberta are more likely to prefer the NDP to the UCP.

Look elsewhere though, and things get more interesting. A new poll from Researchco shows that the BC NDP’s lead is narrowing, with David Eby’s party just six points ahead of John Rustad’s ever more competitive BC Conservatives. Among 18-34 year olds, however, the two parties are in a statistical tie among decided voters. 

It’s not just a western phenomenon, either.  338Canada’s poll of polls has consistently shown the federal Liberals are in trouble. It has had them nearly 20 points behind the Conservatives since the beginning of the year.  Look under the hood, and it's clear that young voters are deserting the federal Liberals too. If a vote were held today, 36% of voters aged 18-34 would vote Conservative, according to one typical poll from Leger.

This is a stunning reversal given how the federal Liberal party rode to power in 2015, 2019, and 2021 on the back of a youth wave at the ballot box, with about 1 in 3 young voters supporting the Liberals in polls just before the election in 2015—outpolling both NDP and Conservatives with the demographic by a wide margin. 

In Quebec we see the same pattern, again on the right. The governing Coalition Avenir Quebec significantly grew their majority in 2022 with strong polling support among voters of all ages. In the two years since however, the party has lost both the lead, and the support of young voters in particular. Two sovereigntist parties are now riding high in the polls instead, with the Parti Quebecois enjoying broad support among voters of all ages, and young voters showing interest in the social justice-oriented Quebec Solidaire party. 

(Admittedly one place the result does not appear to hold is Ontario. I’ll leave it to readers to decide why. One possibility is the lack of a compelling alternative, as both the ONDP and Ontario Liberals seem unable to get traction on just about anything.)

Widen the scope beyond Canada, and the pattern is discernible as well. In the US, young voters from marginalized communities in particular are less likely to support Biden than previously. Given the alternative, the decline is a remarkable indictment. 

It’s not limited to the English speaking world either. In many other jurisdictions the populist turn is well underway. Mexico's deeply polarized recent elections confirmed the ascendancy of the populist left-of-centre Morena party, with the support of young voters. Other South American states have gone through their own cycles of polarizing populist politics as well.

in Germany youth voters have turned away from progressive parties towards right parties such as the CDU, and even far-right parties such as the AfD. 

In France, with legislative election is just days away, Macron’s centrist alliance is polling a distant third. The radical right Popular Front is comfortably in front, and seems on track to secure a plurality, and perhaps even a majority in cooperation with other right-of-centre parties. Crosstab results from a recent Ipsos poll suggests—you guessed it—younger voters are leading the charge away from the centre, with more than 4 in 10 voters aged 18-34 indicating their support for Marine Le Pen’s populist right-of-centre party. 

The broken social contract

At base, I’d suggest that the cause is a loss of trust in government. Simply put, most voters have a deep sense of grievance at the world they live in, and increasingly doubt that their government has their best interests at heart. Voters from diverse marginalized backgrounds no longer trust that incumbent governments will do what they need to keep them safe, secure, and hopeful of better times ahead. The lack of trust leads people to become more receptive to anyone with a clear and simple message about what’s wrong and what they’ll do about it. More worrying still, it can lead to a steady erosion in the fundamental institutions of democratic government. 

The experience of this sense of grievance, and collective failure is widely shared—even as the specific issues can vary widely, even pulling in opposite directions. They lead to a widening, paradoxical, yet very real sense of simultaneous grievance on a host of issues, from housing to climate, from immigration to responses to the ongoing violence in Gaza. Undergirding this is a broader sense of powerlessness, one that pervades much of the world. Global surveys by Pew drive home just how widespread the sense is that the game of life is rigged.

For those who lack access to basic markers of prosperity such as a stable job or home ownership, the gap between promise and fulfillment is vast, and continues to grow. More frustrating, the most dynamic regional economies are also the most difficult to afford housing in, as Vancouver’s struggles with affordability continue to demonstrate. If even a good paying job doesn’t offer a path to economic security, then what’s the point? 

Likewise, for those worried about how to secure a lucrative and rewarding career and having to pay for their own education, the numbers are even more worrisome, as debt loads have steadily increased for graduates at all levels.  

The social contract is also not solely about financial security. For those who have long felt threatened by the excesses of state security forces, evidence has accumulated not only that they were right to feel so, but that incumbent governments can’t or won’t do much about it. This applies not only to police forces, but armed forces resistant to desperately needed reform as well. 

For those who feel that their governments’ positions on the violence in Gaza undermine their sense of security, there is evidence to reinforce those conclusions in Canada for members of the country’s Islamic and Jewish communities alike.

For those worried about the future of the planet’s climate, the contrast between present realities—let alone future stakes—and governments’ actions is stark.

Other factors are harder to quantify, but nonetheless likely matter as well. The legacy of COVID remains remarkably uneven—while all experienced measures to keep us safe, the burden of them (in stark contrast with the burden of the illness itself) in many ways fell hardest on the youngest in society, who missed out on life-defining moments, social, educational, and economic opportunities and have been trying to catch up ever since. Meanwhile those who were already comfortable with their lot in life found ways to get by or even get ahead, working from home, tending their own gardens, literally and figuratively. 

As debates in the US and UK make clear, even gender can become a source of ontological unease. Voters unsure of their place in this world may be more inclined to listen to anyone promising a simple formula to return to order.  

Again and again, the pattern recurs: the system works for those who are already comfortable, while the climb becomes ever steeper, the future ever more threatening, for anyone outside that charmed group—and the outsiders include a disordinate number of young voters. 

Certainly, there is much more to this story. The recent inflation shock shook the confidence of even the comparatively comfortable. That’s not a surprise; democratic governments have always lived and died by the economy, whether the problems are of their own creation or not. 

The bigger argument though is that beyond the rise in cost of living of the last few years, there is a sense among many of the young and otherwise marginalized in society that the system no longer works for them. The social contract no longer functions. Trust has been broken and more radical change is warranted in their eyes as a result. Accordingly, young and otherwise marginalized voters are increasingly opposed to incumbent governments, and open to the appeals offered by anti-systemic alternatives.

Democracy exists in part due to its promise to the losers—you’ll have a chance to compete again next time around, and maybe you’ll do better. But what if, win or lose, you never come out ahead? Why keep playing the same losing hand? It is a short step from being opposed to governments, to being opposed to government—against the idea of democracy in general. If the game seems rigged, what’s the point in playing? Why not roll the dice on an alternative—someone with simple clear answers, who claims to know what scapegoats to blame for why your life isn’t what you thought it should be?

If governments of the day wish to win back people—whether Canada’s federal Liberals, or anywhere else in the world—they need to admit where they’ve gone wrong, and start giving those who need help reason to believe better times are ahead.

Centrist parties of the right or left need to be able to credibly assure young and marginalized voters of all descriptions that they have their best interests at heart, and are able to take effective action to make good on commitments to change things for the better. Fail to do so, and they risk being pulled in more radical directions, as we have seen with numerous right of centre parties in recent years, or disappearing from relevance entirely. 

A new leader won’t change that, unless they bring a new kind of leadership.